playhouse

You may remember the playhouse? The one that we allegedly were building for the children but was really designed for us to use after they got tired of it? Well, it’s seen its first construction activity since 2010, when the first ‘X’ railings were installed. Yet another time where I would have sworn that I did that last year, but somehow an extra 365 days slipped themselves into the equation.

Last weekend the missing front bracket/support (non-structural) and the other 3 Xs were added. The great thing about the Xs is that they add a huge amount of bracing to the playhouse, since our open-air design and heavy top conspired to make the roof a little wibbely-wobbely. Now you can push it as hard as you want, and it doesn’t budge. The side-to-side stiffness in the front is still a little substandard, but we don’t want to add any diagonal bracing for aesthetic reasons.

It should all hold up just fine, though. At least until the Cascadia Subduction Zone pops…

It's trying hard to convince us that it was added for structural integrity, but we all know it was for vanity.

Xs mark the spots

Added to the playhouse this weekend:

• one set of X railing
• the back horizontal railing
• the plywood back wall

We had intended since the beginning to make the back wall completely solid, but now that 1/2 of it is done, we are liking the more open air feeling and look.  We’ll let it gel for awhile longer, but that’s probably how it’s going to stay.

New rails and back wall

After my recent learning experience on how to properly space cedar roofing shingles, I had gradually been reworking the roof.  Yesterday Chloe went to play at the neighbors’, so I had a big block of time to keep pounding away.

Installing these is tedious, but they really are beautiful.  I got everything done up to the ridgeline, so all I need to do is install some flashing on top to complete the job.

With many DIY projects, I know just enough to have an unjustified confidence and not enough to know that I’m screwing something up.  I had started installing the playhouse shingles based on my own recollections of how much exposure each shingle was supposed to get.  You have to keep in mind that I’ve never installed a cedar roof before, so these memories might have been based on something I read years ago.  Long enough ago that I had forgotten the important parts.

When I was about 1/3 of the way through the roof, I noticed that the back of the tag had some instructions that just had to be wrong, since they didn’t agree with what I was doing.  They said that each shingle should get no more than 5″ of exposure, but I was setting them with 7 1/2″.  Given that they are about 15-16″ long, that meant the difference between 2 layers and 3 layers.  Since I was careful about my seams and nail spacing, I convinced myself that it just wasn’t necessary to go so overkill on a playhouse.   And besides, who wants to spend more on cedar shingles than they absolutely have to?  The partial roof had already gone through several rains without incident, so I wasn’t too concerned.

Well after getting much more of the roof done today and checking on it after a rain, I now realize I screwed up.  While there are no active leaks, the problem is actually water soaking through the shingles, causing a bunch of them to look like the picture below.  I think this will eventually lead to real leaks, so my plan now is to start pulling up nails and resetting shingles at the correct 5″ spacing.  Not fun all all, but better to do it now than rip it apart or replace it later!

Soaked cedar

Q: what’s better than spending fathers day weekend working on a playhouse

A: nothing!

Birds' eye view

So here’s what was accomplished the last couple of weekends.  As always, it’s piecemeal…a few hours here, a couple there.  One of the design changes we’ve made since the “final” Sketchup design is to extend the front rafters out beyond the roof line.  Also, we switched to 2x8s for the front rafters to both give a more solid look, as well as to have extra depth to allow them to be notched around the lower beams.  Since you really can’t see any of the other rafters from the sides, they really do make the roofline look much more serious.

The cedar shingles look awesome, but they too are not very visible except along the front edge or if you choose to remove an upstairs screen and hang out the window to get a look at them.  With just a little more effort, the playhouse will be dry!   Of course, it’s taken me to the end of the rainy season, so that was bound to happen naturally, anyway

The first few shingles

The first of the larger, notched rafters in the front of the playhouse

The front rafters project out beyond the roofline

More shingles!

I once again was able to press last year’s scaffolding platforms into service.  By resting them on the 2×6 ties, they turned what would be a monster pain in the ass into a relatively easy project.  As each rafter has gone in, the “floating” beam in the middle moves less and less.  It is really helping to stiffen up the structure.

Work platform #1 in place

8 rafters done!

Today was fairly productive, considering that multiple lumber yard visits were made in the morning.  The overall shape of the playhouse is now apparent, as all the beams are in place.  I tacked on an old piece of decking in lieu of a rafter, so that we could see the roof line.  It is quite exciting to see this come to life.  Ginger, of course, still says it’s not a playhouse (no doors!).

Fresh cedar from Mr. Plywood

A post waiting for a beam

Lower beams in place

Not hard to imagine it anymore!

We went through another round of revisions on the playhouse design recently.  What you can’t see in the rendering are the cedar shingles that we’re going to use for the roof.

The ever-changing design

We decided to make it less modern than our original design.

I finally remembered to pick up some concrete, so that I could pour the final footing, in the front right corner of the playhouse.   This hardly warrants its own post, but I just wanted to show that there is actually some progress!

Should stay put!